Wanting

I’d know her face anywhere; it’s graced tabloids, fashion magazines, movie posters. I have all of them in my room, but they feel impersonal compared to the candid shot that I have framed. It sits above my bed and has watched me sleep ever since I was a young child. She looks exactly the same as she did in that picture, taken almost twenty years ago, and I can only hope to achieve her eternal beauty. I don’t have the curling chestnut hair or the deep green eyes, or even her button nose. She doesn’t see me as I walk closer, and bile panic rises in my throat that she won’t recognize me, that she’ll think I’m just fucking with her.

She hasn’t seen me in sixteen years, and I want to know why.

I swallow the stinging bile down and wave meekly toward her. She smiles as she sees me. My heart leaps with unexpected joy; she knows me, she recognizes me! and the warmth spilling out from her weakens my joints.

“Hullo,” I mumble, as she sweeps me into a grand hug. Honey and oranges fill my nose, a delightful sweet scent that slaps me in the face like an old memory come to life. A thousand images crowd my mind as we make our way to our table, and I have to shrug them off, tuck them away down deep. How am I going to get through this? Perhaps Gran should have come with me, like she wanted to.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown,” the woman says, shaking out her napkin and placing it delicately on her lap. I nod; at just over six feet tall, I’m much bigger now than I was at a year and a half. But I can’t say that to her; she’s American. She wouldn’t put up with that kind of snarky nonsense.

“It’s been a while,” I say instead. I don’t touch the menu in front of me. The woman quirks a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me. I look down at my folded hands. Perhaps I should have put on some makeup or gotten more dressed up. She’s sitting across from me, a perfectly fashionable queen, and I opted for a jumper and jeans.

“It has,” she says. An awkward silence commences. I can’t look at her, but can feel her eyes boring into my skull, into my mousy brown hair. Maybe she’s taking stock of everything that’s wrong with me, from my dull hair to spotted skin to crooked teeth. Hers are perfect and straight. I wonder if she had braces, but immediately dismiss that thought. No, of course not; no one that perfect has ever had braces. I open my mouth, but only a hoarse squeak comes out. I have to clear my throat three times and drink half my water before I can choke the words out.

“Why did you come?” I ask. She sets her menu down and meets my eyes with her deep green ones.
“I wanted to see you,” she says. “I trust your father has taken care of you?”

“Yes,” I say. Three more squeaks and throat-clearings but I can’t get the words to come out. She’s taking obvious pleasure in my awkwardness. That makes it harder.

“Why aren’t you happy?” she asks, as though she didn’t abandon her eighteen-month-old daughter to a foreign country. As though it’s not completely obvious. I press my lips together. No, I will not make a scene. It’s not the British thing to do.

“You abandoned me,” I say, choking on bile and tears. Her face hardens.

“No,” she says. “No, I gave you to someone better.”

“Who better than my own mum?” I ask on the brink of tears. The waitress comes to take our order and I have to choke down my feelings to tell her I want a hamburger please. The woman across from me orders a rum and coke and that’s all.

“Didn’t he raise you?” she asks as the waitress scurries off. Her words are hard and cold. I shrug.

“Sort of.”

“I gave him the legal paperwork. I surrendered you to his custody.” She says it like it’s so black-and-white, so matter-of-fact. Like my father wasn’t a codependent, spineless man with an affinity for women who would destroy his life.

“What does that even mean?” I say. “I would have been better with you.”

Her earrings tinkle as she shakes her head. “No,” she says. “You were better here.”

“How could you know?” I whisper. She closes her eyes.

“Because I didn’t want you.” The bomb drops. My world shatters.

“Then why did you have me?” I whisper, shaking with anger and self-loathing. Nobody wanted me. Not my real mum, not any of Dad’s wives, not even Gran though she was better at hiding it than everyone else.

The woman in front of me shrugs. “I was young and in love. I thought I wanted a baby. And then I left him. I thought I could raise you myself, but it was so, so hard.”

“Were you addicted to drugs?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Were you in debt?” Again. “Were we poor?” Again. I lean forward on the table, put my head in my hands and stare at the white cloth beneath me, try to slow my pounding heart.

“You have to understand; I thought having a child would be fun. But sitters are expensive, and the house was always a mess.” She doesn’t reach out to me, doesn’t try to comfort me as everything inside spins out of control. “And I am selfish. I wasn’t willing to give my life up just to raise you.”
I throw myself backward in my chair and upset the waitress walking by. The tray falls with a clatter to the floor, our dinner ruined on the fancy carpet. Both women look at me as I rise.

“Fuck. You.” I say to her. The restaurant is dead silent. I storm out as the paparazzi move in.

Based on this.
1005 words